Changes

::I think it will work,:: Dallen replied. ::With a few changes. Nothing drastic. But it will make a great deal of difference. Do you remember that room with the crystal sphere in it?::

He blushed a little. As if he could forget! He and Amily had gotten rather beyond just kissing before prudence and Dallen’s reminder that the room was not a private one had brought them both to their senses.

::What ’bout it? I mean, ’tis shielded, so that’ll help, I s’pose—::

::It’s more than that,:: Dallen said, raising his head and flagging his tail. ::Much, much more. If you were being Gift-trained like the rest, you wouldn’t even know the thing exists, much less what it can do, for years, maybe not ever. But I am your instructor, and it is my determination that—::

::What thing?:: Mags interrupted him. ::Ye mean, thet glass ball?::

Dallen snorted and shook his head so his ears flapped. ::That ‘glass ball’ is not glass at all and—well, never mind. The point is that one of its functions is to allow anyone to focus a Gift with great precision, providing that the Gift us under conscious control. For instance, it helps Mindspeakers to focus right down on a single person at a great distance.::

Mags saw where he was going immediately. ::So, since I already know what these bastiches feel like an’ look like, what wi’ thet whatever ’tis thet’s watchin’ over ’em, I kin find ’em wi’out havin’ t’drop shields an’ kinda roam around open.::

::Exactly,:: Dallen replied and fixed Mags with an intense gaze, his blue eyes practically boring a hole into Mags’ brain. ::You’ll have to be careful—I honestly don’t know what is shielding these people, and we already know that it reacts poorly to any perceived meddling. For all we know, if it thought there was something about, it might lash out. And the danger isn’t only to you, it’s to anyone about that might somehow be open to it.::

::Aight. I’m headin’ fer thet room now.::

He patted Dallen’s shoulder, turned, and—

Well he would have trotted toward the Palace, if it hadn’t been so hot that it felt as if he were being weighed down by bags of baked salt. He concentrated on the fact that it was going to be a lot cooler in the shade and grimly forged his way toward the buildings.

Getting inside the Palace was a relief. The side door was in shade, and the stone walls of the Palace held out a lot of the heat. The cooler he got, the more energetic he felt, and he began to feel less like a baked brick as he made his way down the dim stairs and into the lower level. By the time he reached the door to that mysterious little room, he was feeling as if he could take on almost anything.

He opened the door to find that the room was empty, and there was no sign that anyone had been in it recently. That shaded lamp was still burning over the center of the table. Was it ever allowed to go out? Maybe not. If Dallen was to be believed, and the crystal sphere could make your Gift work better, then you wouldn’t want to have to wait around for someone to come light the lamp for you when you needed it. How many people knew about this place? He’d bet, not many.

::It works best with specific Gifts,:: Dallen said. ::Mindspeakers don’t bother with it, much. For sending a message quickly to a Herald at a distance, it’s easier just to ask the Companions to do it.::

He entered and closed the door behind him, then sat down carefully on one of the padded seats. ::Now what?::

::I want you to understand that because you are going to be using your Gift in a very intense way, it is going to take a great deal out of you,:: Dallen cautioned. ::Your Gift is like any other thing you do; it takes energy to use it. This will be exactly like playing the most energetic game of Kirball you ever have in your life, followed by two more. And that’s if you’re lucky.::

::Nothin’ comes fer free, I got it,:: he replied, leaning over the table. ::What else?::

::You will not need to keep your shields up. The room will shield you in part—to be brief, it will shield you from everyone up on the Hill. For the rest, as you hunt, I will shield you, as I did before you learned to shield yourself. Save your strength for the hunt.::

::Aight.:: He relaxed and let the shields down, a little at a time, and—

Huh.

Dallen was right. The shields on this room were incredible. He wondered how that had been done, since most shields evaporated when the person who held them in place died.

::Now just let your eyes rest on the crystal. Remember what those Agents looked like when you saw them, either with your own eyes or Nikolas’. They were probably not bothering to disguise themselves at the time. Then remember how their minds looked to you, and when you are sure of what you are looking for, start hunting. It will be like sifting gravel to find a gemstone.::

He braced his elbows on the tabletop, cupped his chin in his hands, and stared at the crystal. After a moment, he realized that he couldn’t look away. Something was holding his gaze.

The crystal was holding his gaze.

He made no attempt to fight it. Instead, he did as Dallen had told him to do and concentrated on the two enemy Agents he had seen. Height... roughly the same as Nikolas, one shorter than the other. Build... powerful, but lean. Their faces though... there was something like a distant family resemblance there. Both had lightly tanned skin, dark hair, dark eyes—by candlelight he couldn’t vouch for the exact color. Thin lips, strong cheekbones, deep-set eyes. Expressions that were so neutral they were masklike. Eyes like shiny dark pebbles and just about as cold and lifeless.

Things started coming up in his memory, things he had not consciously noticed at the time. A scar at the corner of the shorter one’s left eye. That their hands were gloved, but the gloves had no fingers. That the fingertips looked oddly flat, the fingers had a cross-hatching of faint scars on the backs.

When he had them firmly in his mind’s eyes, he added the memory of how they had “felt” in his head. How dispassionate and cold those stray thoughts had been, as if everything were a factor in some calculation that only they knew the answer to. And how utterly indifferent they were to whether something or someone lived or died. They were nothing like the man who had somehow driven his dreams and feelings into Mags without realizing it. And yet... they were clearly cast from the same mold, fired in the same furnace. The one that Mags had called Temper had been flawed, though the flaws had never been on the surface, and those who had sent him had had no idea that what they had sent out would crack so easily under pressure. These two were the perfect specimens of... of... of whatever it was they were supposed to become.

Weapons. They were supposed to become weapons.

Mags felt something fall into place as he recognized what they were. And he had names for them now—“Ice”—that was the older, slightly taller one. He was colder than the other, and experiences and emotions simply slipped off him. “Stone” was the other—not as cold, but harder. Nothing got past his surface. The first froze his own feelings. The second never allowed them to escape.